Hispanic Studies

The Department of Hispanic Studies at Brown University trains students to be both specialists and generalists, language teachers and literature scholars, researchers and active intellectuals. Our faculty represents a broad range of topics and approaches, with particular strengths in early modern and colonial literature, modern and contemporary Latin American narrative, poetry and transatlantic studies.

Class sizes are kept small, to ensure close interaction between students and faculty during the five years of the program, and students receive careful guidance on individual plans of study, professional issues, and job placement.

Additional resources: We encourage our students to take advantage of the many opportunities for disciplinary exchange and collaborations that characterize intellectual life at Brown, especially through the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Cogut Center for the Humanities, the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, and the Program for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies. Excellent general scholarly resources are available through the David Rockefeller Library, while the John Carter Brown and Hay libraries contain extraordinary holdings in special materials. Finally, our students also have the opportunity to take courses at neighboring institutions such as Harvard and Yale, or to study abroad at the Universidad de Salamanca.

Completion RequirementsPh.D.: Fifteen courses including one course each in philology and language teaching methodologies; 25-30 page major paper; reading knowledge of two languages other than Spanish and English; six semesters of teaching; preliminary examination in general and specialized areas; dissertation.

Admission InformationAdmission requirements: A two-page (maximum) statement of your research interests, in English; a CV; a writing sample in Spanish on a subject related to Hispanic literature (12-15 pages double-spaced maximum; do not exceed this length, and do not submit more than one sample); a 2-minute video statement in Spanish about a book or article which has been important to you in your studies (please send a recorded video directly to mary_oliver@brown.edu; you may prepare notes in advance, but please do not read your response; we're most interested in hearing you talk about a subject of interest to you); three letters of recommendation; transcripts; current GRE scores; and where applicable, a current TOEFL score (minimum 90 points) or IELTS (minimum overall band score: 7).